“This was a really, really simple yet really pragmatic study,” Garland said. “What we did was we approached patients who were reporting that their pain was intolerable, unmanageable, for a whole range of issues: various diseases, injuries and surgeries causing pain.”

There were three types of intervention, including a control group.

“Patients who agreed were randomly assigned to receive either 15 minutes of a scripted mindfulness intervention, 15 minutes of a scripted hypnotic suggestion intervention, or 15 minutes of a pain education control,” he said. “We measured pain immediately before and immediately after the intervention.”

The group who received the mindfulness intervention had an average of 23 percent less pain. The hypnotic intervention group had a reduction of 29 percent. The control group had an average reduction of nine percent.

Excluding the control group, Garland said one third of patients had a pain reduction of more than 30 percent, which is considered clinically significant. The treatment had no side-effects, no potential for addiction, and was inexpensive and relatively easy to implement, even in a busy hospital environment.

“What it tells me, the take-home message is that these brief mind-body therapies really ought to be offered in a variety of standard healthcare settings,” he said. “It really shows that the integrative approach of treating both mind and body simultaneously can really bring relief to a lot of suffering people.”